why would anyone support Baucus’s plan over a simple single payor insurance plan modeled on a country whose plan has better results than the US and costs less?

a national health plan designed to enhance the financial health of insurance companies? who could have predicted…..?

Might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, true.

The GOP/Media Complex is going to scream “SOCIALISM!” no matter what (as if socialism really was a dirty word), so why not, y’know, actually do it?

But, but, but — we are exceptional, and surely our unique exceptionality requires something unlike what all those foreigners have done?!

Gee are we going to get donut holes and a requirement to pay what ever the insurance companies want to charge.

Just a drive by, but thank you for this post and thank you for saying this. You are absolutely right that single payer is the way to go.

The new congressman from CO, Jared Polis, has said single payer is the only way to go.

dugg

C’mon Ian, what else would you expect from Baucus? This guy is such a blue dog he makes huckleberry hound look red.

Also just driving by, beep beep!, but I wanted to say two things in re. this:

Stop reinventing the wheel and do what works.

1. Thank you, thank you for framing it this way. “… [T]here must be a uniquely American answer…” might make sense if health care were a uniquely American problem, but it isn’t, so it doesn’t.

2. That sounds very Obamaoid to me. Practical solutions for urgent problems. Let us hope his people pass this idea along, and with a strong Buy recommendation.

That is all. Carry on. Beep beep!

OT but important - After counting about 10,000 of 90,000+ uncounted votes in Alaska today, Mark Begich has pulled to about 700 votes behind Ted Stevens. He was 3,000 behind this morning. Berkowitz has pulled to about 14,000 behind Don Young. He was 17.000+ behind this morning. At this rate, Ethan Berkowitz might evn pass Young.

OMFG, I can’t get past the 1st sentence quoted.
WHY do we need a “uniquely American” solution?!!!
Somebody give Critter Baucus a refresher on Begging the Question.

OT, but sort of not…
American Experience had the story of the Berlin Airlift on my local PBS station Monday night. It made me cry to see such an example of the best that Americans can be when such examples seem so few and far between right now. I love my Country the way I’m told many parents love their kids: enough to see and try to correct their worst faults.

Thanks for this, Ian.

FunnyD

Wow. Fingers and toes, ET…

Yahoo

ET, that’s fantastic!
Keep counting the votes, Alaska! Count them all! It’s the right thing to do, no matter the outcome. And, IMO, should be the rule and not the exception in this country.

FunnyD

This kind of thinking is precisely why I’m deathly afraid of the Federal government coming up with the functional model for what UHC will look like.

We need desperately to get over our “Not Invented Here” syndrome.

Thanks ET.

I’d like to know which Health Insurance lobbyists have donated to Baucus and how much. Anyone know how this could be found out? Someone should dig the dirt on him-

Sounds like the Baucus plan is really about healthcare for insurance companies. Our Congress is so bought and paid for that it would never enter their darkest dreams to do anything that might help the general public.

The way things are going we need to get used to “not invented here”

from a great dkos diary “Why Mandated Insurance Sucks - a Primer” that bonkers linked to earlier today:

…mandated insurance is a tax on people for being poor or lower-middle class. It will do NOTHING to solve the real problem or the real need, which is guaranteed access to affordable care. The subsidies will prove inadequate as has been shown in Massachusetts. The mandate will be widely evaded, as shown in Massachusetts. The public option will become the dumping ground for the for-profit insurers who want to get rid of the sick. And that will in turn drive up the costs of the public option and cause a political crisis that will give ammunition to enemies of government action on health care.

Finally, mandates will jeopardize our political gains. If you think that during a recession and a time of mass unemployment that handing Americans a bill for insurance that comes with high premiums, high deductibles and crappy coverage that voters will do anything but give us a big fat electoral raspberry, you are insane.

Whoo HOOO!

Baucus says aye.

:o

OT, probably — Ian, do you have any thoughts on the strange stuff documented here? Not the Baltic Index (no ship cargo moving worldwide? really?) so much as the huge spikes in Fed total assets and reserve balances. And I guess the synchrony between the Baltic plummet & the Fed spikes. Is somebody saving up for something we don’t know about yet?

OT via Froomkin

The nation’s top two intelligence officers expect to be replaced by President-elect Barack Obama early in his administration, according to senior intelligence officials.

“A number of influential congressional Democrats oppose keeping Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden in their posts because both have publicly supported controversial Bush administration policies on interrogation and telephone surveillance. One Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said there is a ‘consensus’ view on the matter.

“Both wish to remain on the job, officials say, though neither has said so publicly, and both think that their early departures could be seen as politicizing their offices and setting a precedent for automatic turnover when the White House changes hands.”

Of course, there’s another way of looking at it: Accountability.

These two clowns worrying about politicizing their offices now is hysterical. A pair of more partisan hacks would be hard to find.

Medicare for all.

That’s what it looks like. Just do it.

To do it like the Swiss, we would have to add effective, and enforced, standards for socially responsible behavior of big cartels. We have the big cartels, and we have government bargaining with the cartels. But, recently it has gone like this. Cartels: here are our demands; govt: maybe you want a little more? after all there is an election coming up and I supersize if your people could talk with my people).

There are other problems with Swiss system applied here. For example, Swiss have a fragmented public health system, and fragmented and rudimentary preventive care. That might be OK with individual health systems for each canton, and less inequality in the population of each canton. We do not have that here.

Unless we beef up public health system and reduce inequality, costs of medicare for all could be high. Recent research shows reduction in life-span and increases in morbidity in the US, associated with minority race and poverty (indpendent effects, so poor of all races show declines in health).

I agree with Ian, we have more than a dozen models from all over the world. Some one needs to explain what ‘Uniquely American’ means before I would buy on to such a health care plan.

Switzerland, Japan, France, Netherlands, Taiwan, Sweden, all have systems that provide some good ideas. All have high quality service. We could add Canada, if vagaries of provincial messing around wtih funding could be eliminated from their system.

I think the excuses for not using those models, beside using jingoism as a scare tactic, are BS. Usually hear stuff like
“They are smaller” BS -Sweden has shown how to integrate national health care system with semi-autonomous regional system tailored to geographic regional needs.
“They are homogenous” Ha! Tell any European how homogenous their country is. Is Switzerland, with three languages homogenous?

ET -what’s your source? The Alaska Division of Elections indicates a lead for Stevens of 1,000 after 25,000 extra votes and that Young’s lead is 15,700.

As a Canadian living in the US, Ian, I share your exasperation with the efforts of politicians of all stripes to avoid any accusations of socialism by trying to concoct a Frankenstein of a health-care system. Single payer. Single payer. Single payer. In Canada, doctors do NOT work for the government, any more than doctors in the US do, even within an HMO. Even doctors who take medicare are NOT working for the govt. Why can’t they see?

Actually, I am pretty happy with my car insurance. It’s called Esurance and their paperwork is completely online, which allows them to lower overhead, they say. The insurance is $1200-$1500/year less than what I was paying for the same coverage. Also car insurance is pretty rigorously regulated in California thanks to Prop. 103.

But auto insurance, which you practically never use, is not the same as health insurance.

from calculated risk:

From Bloomberg: Dimon Says Recession May Be Worse Than Credit Crisis

“We think the economy could be worse than the capital- markets crisis,” [JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie] Dimon said. “You really need to separate them because they have completely different effects on our businesses and on most businesses.”

Not to be outdone, John Thain, chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch compared the current contraction to the Great Depression…

Upping the ante on JPMorgan’s CEO Dimon and Merrill’s CEO Thain (see previous post), former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead is quoted as saying the current slump will be worse than the Great Depression!

The economy faces a slump deeper than the Great Depression and a growing deficit threatens the credit of the United States itself, former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead …

“I think it would be worse than the depression,” Whitehead said. “We’re talking about reducing the credit of the United States of America, which is the backbone of the economic system. … I see nothing but large increases in the deficit, all of which are serving to decrease the credit standing of America. … I just want to get people thinking about this, and to realize this is a road to disaster. I’ve always been a positive person and optimistic, but I don’t see a solution here.”

So far most of the Great Depression discussions have been phrased in terms of “worst since”. Whitehead has taken the next step - however I think “worse than” is extremely unlikely.

Marcy’s upstairs with new thready goodness..

from bernhard at moon of alabama: How Will The U.S. Finance Itself?

An interesting piece from Barrons: Uncle Sam’s Credit Line Running Out?

The Treasury is set to borrow $550 billion in the current quarter alone and $368 billion in the first quarter of 2009. “Near-term pressures on Treasury finances are much more intense than we had thought,” Goldman Sachs economists commented when the government announced its borrowing projections last week.
…
Backshall is not alone in this dire assessment. Scott Minerd, the chief investment officer for fixed income at Guggenheim Partners, a Los Angeles money manager, estimates that total Treasury borrowing for fiscal 2009 will total $1.5 trillion-$2 trillion.

Even with a decent background in economics I have now too little trust in the various models to predict the outcome of this crisis. There are myriad factors to consider. The yield curve and CDS spreads the Barrons piece emphasizes are more the result of opinions than of efficient markets and they may be quite wrong.

No model I know of fits anymore. Depression, deflation, stagflation, inflation, hyperinflation, default - all seem possible now.

Folks,

It’s not health insurance that’s the problem. It’s health care financing. Everyone consumes health care, the question is how is it allocated and how is it paid for.

There are lots of models, and we happen to have one of the worst right now.

Ian!

A stout-hearted Celtic you are. Baucus, without doubt is the personification of inspired imagination and always evidences the willingness to hear the best of ideas, regardless of their source.

Clearly, the Political Class have understood the need of moving beyond ‘business as usual’.

Without doubt, the insurance companies need ‘help’ since the ‘bailout’, as yet, fails to provide adequate reward for the Wisdoms at the top of the Ponzi …er, ahem! public spirited companies that provide us, at a mere pittance, “The Best Health Care” in the whole, wide world.

Those who would rip us off … erm … would represent us ALWAYS have the best interests of the public, quaintly known as ‘the people’, at heart. Why, both the Ins. Co Wisdoms and our be-knighted Public Servants regard each and every one of us as if we were their own flesh, we are faithless wretches not to trust them completely.

Somebody should be ashamed.

Note: ANY snark herein detected is entirely in the minds of the beholders.

;~D

from cnbc:

The United States may be on course to lose its ‘AAA’ rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche.

“The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system” and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.

If Dimon, Whitehead, and Thain were so smart, why did they not see this coming instead of causing it? All three have zero credibility as far as I am concerned. We can still get out of this in a reasonable way but with idiots like Paulson and the possibility of Summers yes, things could get worse.

good. thanks. was worried because of cr’s links.

Again if we have more idiots like Paulson and the half-assed plans he comes up with, then somewhere down the road there could be a smash up. But two things: first if we go the rest of the world’s economy goes with us and second among the players out there we remain the safest haven.

“Near-term pressures on Treasury finances are much more intense than we had thought,” Goldman Sachs economists commented when the government announced its borrowing projections last week.

Well, lessee, the Fed is printing money like there’s no tomorrow and Goldman Sachs is in charge of the economy. Paulson may be a competent investment banker (read robber baron) but as SecTreas he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

And why is upper management at AIG still employed there?

The Fed has loaned out a couple trillion more than that, actually. That number will have to keep going up over the next few months. You aint’ seen nothing yet. Right now it’s lending out money it doesn’t even have to lend, the treasury will be selling bonds for it.

The baltic dry is much much more interesting. I’m going to have to look into that. That’s a REALLY bad sign about the economy. Really bad.

that’s where i was yesterday. got a little too caught up in the “sky is falling” links today.

although, when i think what is going to happen to the 2+ billion living on 2$ or less/day….

The NewsHour occasionally has someone like Krugman or Stiglitz or at least a reasonably sane economist on but tonight it’s blowhard night with a big defense of Paulson. Ugh!

And why is upper management at AIG still employed there?

not done yet. :(

bernhard on baltic dry index (nice pic too): Visually Noticing The Downturn

I look forward. If a bit tensely.

German private funds dominate the worldwide container ship market with ownership of some 3,000+ ships.

I had to do a double take on that one. There was a time when the US Merchant Marine ruled the seas. Shipping companies then started registering their ships in other countries, usually dictator-led Latin American, to cut the costs of crews and maintenance. Then came the dominance of container ships.

And of course “…of Liberian registry”.

Hank Greenberg used to be CEO at AIG but had a scandal a couple of years ago. Sullivan came in but was replaced by shareholders in June by Robert Willumstad who was fired in September. The guy Paulson chose to run AIG is Eward Liddy. Here is a list of his corporate boardships and other connections, and yes he has a Goldman Sach tie-in:

2008-Present
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
American International Group, Inc.

2007-Present
Former Director, Member of Governance, Organization & Nominating Committee and Member of Compensation Committee
Boeing Co.

2003-Present
Former Director, Chairman of Audit Committee, Member of Corporate Governance & Nominating Committee and Member of Compensation Committee
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

2000-Present
Director, Chairman of Audit Committee and Member of Nominating & Governance Committee
3M Co.

2000-Present
Director
3M Canada Company

1999-Present
Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Allstate Corp.

http://investing.businessweek......%2C%20Inc.

Yeah. Turned some old beautiful cargo ships and tankers into rusting hulks plyin’ the seas. Always wanted to crew on a tramp steamer in the southern Pacific area.

Classic definition of a chaotic system. There is no predictable outcome.

Did that on a Tramp stemer in the North sea, between Felixstowe & Rotterdam.

Impossible to stay clean. The boat was filthy.

the new American Model for addressing all issues including healthcare:

in order of priority:

1) enrich the already rich by taking from the not-rich
2) dissemble the problem so no one really knows what the problem is, can properly fashion a solution, or realize the chosen solution is to enrich the already rich
3) make the actual problem worse by doing (1) and (2)
4) identify and solve a real problem - not so much

Next

even if one has a suitable model, small changes in boundary conditions result in wildly different outcomes.

hell, i don’t have a clue - let alone a model, suitable or not.

by the time I’d slogged through parts of Baucus proposal, I was so sick of reading about marketplace incentives (money, money money!) that were supposed to improve the quality of my Doctor-Patient, Clinic-patient relationship, that I was about to throw-up!

And it seemed like the only fixes for market distortions that Baucus is proposing are more market distortions.

I think our whole system ought to be nationalized, and start over. If they want to semi-privatize later, we can look at that; but for now, I’m so sick and tired of the business values distorting my healthcare relationships that I just…. want …… it ….. allllll….. gone!

But what would all those poor dears do with such a shock???
All those dear little doctors who’ve built their lives getting to the clinic each day motivated only by profit and money??

I had hoped that since I’m over 55 I could escape this mess and qualify
for the lowering the age for qualifying for medicare. But even here, he
describes it as “buy-in”. Buy-In!

A lot of belly-aching from the single-payer camp.

Response to this analysis, please…
- Obama is locked into his plan or at most a Baucus-like plan.
- But, if Congress miraculously presented him with a single-payer bill, he wouldn’t veto it.
- Congress will not pass single-payer unless put under tremendous pressure.
- Sources of pressure: large and/or powerful corporations finally sick of the whole mess; Obama-activists who could hit the streets again and sell neighbors, co-workers, relatives on single-payer, tipping enough congress members; any others?

So …
Where is the door-to-door for single-payer?
Who is organizing the large-corporations-for-single-payer lobby?
Why is progressive opinion so fragmented on this and is there any way to converge progressive opinion on the one or two most viable single-payer scenarios (Medicare for all or whatever else). Where (one place, please) would that convergence be carried out? Would you sign up to whatever that single-payer convergence is (as you probably signed up for Obama, despite Hillaryish or Naderish or other misgivings).
Or is belly-aching too much fun?